Page 180 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Harlow,” my boss’s voice pulled my attention from my laptop. In all of her power-suit glory, with the door now opened, she stood inside of the doorway of my office space.

I cleared my throat. “Yes, Stella?” I asked as I quickly clicked out of the BuzzFeed quiz I was taking and sat up straight in my chair.

She strode across the hardwood floor, her stilettos click-clacking with each step until she reached my desk. Stella McCarthy—my boss and the editor in chief of Gossip—was a real-life doppelgänger of Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. When she said jump, everyone in the office asked how high. And when she actually took the time to stop by your office, you’d better make damn sure you weren’t fucking around.

I took a quick glance at my laptop screen to make sure only my Word doc was visible. The last thing I needed was for Stella to see me taking a Guess My Age Based on My Olive Garden Selection quiz.

“I need you to cover an extra piece this week.”

Goddammit, Cruella de Vil. I’ve already taken on two extra pieces this week!

“Okay.” I forced a smile. “What’s the piece?”

“That popstar, Smiley Walrus.”

Not only was Stella a pain in the ass to work for, the woman never got celebrity names right. Like, ever. It was honestly a fucking conundrum considering she was the editor in chief for a gossip rag.

“Do you mean Miley Cyrus?” I asked, and she raised a pointed brow in my direction.

Another thing about Stella, the woman refused to admit any mistakes or faults. She was literally the world’s worst human being to work for.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” she questioned in irritation.

Um. No. I’m pretty sure you said Smiley Walrus…

“Yep,” I lied.

“I want a piece about her budding relationship with that Holmsmore brother,” she instructed, and I had the urge to say, Hemsworth brother, but I bit my tongue. The last thing I needed was Stella’s wrath on a Tuesday morning.

Generally, if you got on her bad side for the week, she’d take pleasure in giving you a month’s worth of work with a deadline of twenty-four hours. And the sickest part of all was that most of the time, she didn’t even use the extra assignments.

“Okay.” I forced a neutral expression even though the urge to glare was strong as a motherfucker. “No problem.”

“Finish it by tomorrow so it can go on the site by Friday.”

Ugh.

“I’ll start working on it now,” I said, and she strode back out of my office without another word. When the sound of her stilettos click-clacking down the hall disappeared completely, I sagged into my desk chair on a deep and heavy sigh.

It was times like these that I wondered how I’d gotten so off track in my life. When I’d started my freshman term of college at NYU, I began the year with the intention of going pre-med. And by the time I’d reached my junior year, I’d been ahead and finished all of my prerequisites. Hell, I’d even been accepted for a summer internship with one of the country’s top specialized surgeons.

But then, I’d met Brent. And my life had taken an abrupt turn and headed in the exact opposite direction of where I’d intended.

I’d lost a lot during that relationship. I’d lost myself. I’d lost my priorities. I’d lost some of my closest friends. I’d lost everything that was important to me. And it would always be the one example—the most important reminder—of why another long-term relationship was not something I’d ever try again.

Unless I happened to have already met the right person.

Good God, not this thought process again…

No. No relationships. Not with Scott or any other man for that matter. I’d promised myself that, and I was sticking to that fucking promise. I loved myself too much to let myself get lost again like I had with my ex.

Before the painful memories of my relationship with Brent—or the ridiculous and scarily recurrent thoughts I’d been having about Scott—could find their way inside my head, I moved my focus to my laptop. I was on a deadline, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t have time for bullshit. I had to find my goddamn center and finish this feel-good column about current celebrity relationships that overcame all of the odds—for a couple years, at least—along with the added piece about Smiley Walrus and her Holmsmore fiancé.

Sigh. Just find your writing mojo, Harlow…

Twenty minutes later and my brain was void of depressing thoughts and solely focused on my work tasks. Writing gossip columns wasn’t exactly my dream job, but it paid the bills, and often, I did enjoy making Gossip readers laugh with witty one-liners and quirky anecdotes.

“Knock. Knock.” The unexpected voice stopped my fingers’ progress across the keys and pulled my gaze away from my laptop screen. A young guy, probably college age, stood in the doorway holding a brown paper sack in his hands. “I have a delivery for you.”